The Edge of Language – workshop

Upcoming is a special Genetic Choir workshop about the exciting and confusing no-mans land between language and sound, words and music.

When we improvise with our voices, sometimes sounds emerge which are language-like, or even very much like comprehensible words. How do we treat this moment when singers are on the verge of becoming improvising poets?

It is fun to play with the sound of words, mix them and change them. It is what children do a lot and it is a bliss to indulge ourselves into this word-sound playfulness.
But as improvisers, we are looking for more: clarity and depth of expression, not only in music but also when words come in to play. For the audience, the shift from music to words is sudden, because our minds work that way: they cling to understandable words and story whenever they can. So how do we treat this shift as improvisers? How do we keep the imagination open when words pretend to pin down all meaning? Can we serve both, the god of poetry and the god of music? Or even better: can we stay in the no-mans land between music and meaning, and take all our time to balance on the Edge of Language?